Description

Kite is the flagship project of Lab Cat games, a one person development studio with a love of old school gaming. The distinctive retro-future setting, synthwave soundtrack and pixel art style are hallmarks of Kite and the kind of nostalgic experiences Lab Cat Games aims to produce.

History

Early history

Founded in 2014 by James Treneman, Lab Cat Games began with a long walk off a short pier. Quitting his management job to persue a lifelong dream of making games, James took the plunge into gamedev head first. Inspired by childhood favorites such as Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Smash TV and The Chaos Engine, he feverishly learned Gamemaker Language and started the development of Kite. Within weeks an early prototype came to be and friends were encouraged to give it a shot. It was a top down run and gun with loads of mechanics. Feedback was positive - he had found the fun! It was drek visually, but gameplay was strong and showed potential. Mechanics and features were piled on with glee until the controls became so unwieldy even the designer couldn't remember what buttons fired what weapons. The ship was listing and cargo needed to be dumped...

Kite Alpha

Slowly the Combat Sim/Dungeon Crawl/Story Driven/Stat Fest/Monster Hunter/RPG scope was whittled away until an actual game, and just one, could be seen taking shape. In a similar fashion, programmer art began to look more like production art and early programming started to look more like drek. Refactoring and scope cutting continued, and although at an excruciating pace, social media and promotional skills were even tacked on. The rough honing of the stone complete, Kite's structure was clear and James' vision was now a fully playable game.

Today

Kite will leave Early Access in March, and Steam keys are available for review purposes! GG and thanks for checking out Kite!